Shin thwarts challengers, leads Kingsmill Championship by 1 shot

Lynn Burke, lburke@dailypress.com | 757-247-4961

Jiyai Shin, still the leader of the Kingsmill Championship, wore a purple shirt with pink dots on it Friday.

There wasn't a bulls-eye to be seen on the shirt, but that didn't stop the field from taking shot after shot at her during the second round. That's because her 9-under 62 Thursday gave her a three-shot lead when darkness suspended play.

While playing in the afternoon group Friday, she shot a 68 and even though her lead was cut to one stroke, she remains atop the leaderboard after the second round.

"I feel good. I'm looking forward to the weekend," said Shin, who hasn't won a tournament since 2010. "I saw a lot of players play good today, so I think it will make the competition fun the next two days."

And they'll fire away at again Shin on Saturday, who has little room for error. Behind her are 23 golfers within six strokes of the lead.

The Golf Channel's telecast Saturday afternoon ends at 3:30, which means golfers again will go off the first and 10th tees. The leaders are expected to tee off from the No. 1 hole around 10:20 a.m.

The Netherlands' Schreefel was the first to challenge Shin. She shrugged off a rules violation double bogey while completing her first round early Friday morning, then played a bogey-free second round to finish at 10-under and take a temporary one-stroke.

Top-ranked American Lewis, also playing in the morning, shot 65 and was even with Shin at 9-under going to 18, but a bogey knocked her to 8-under.

Kang came the closest with the day's best round of 64. She birdied six of her first nine holes (she played the back nine first) for a 29 that put her at 10-under. But on her second nine, her only bogey offset her two birdies.

Creamer got to 10-under with two holes left, but parred out.

Shin moved to 10-under and a tie with Schreefel with a birdie on her second hole, then went ahead for good with a birdie on No. 7. She was up by three shots, but Kang's charge coupled with a bogey on 16 resulted in the one-shot margin.

Shin said she was aware of everything going on in the afternoon.

"I'm always watching the leaderboard because I have to know my position," she said. "I keep changing my plans each hole after I check the positions."

Kang missed the cut in her last two tournaments and said she has gone back to how she approached shots when she was an amateur. The 19-year-old rookie had a stellar amateur career, winning the 2010 and 2011 U.S. Amateur championships.

"Today was an awesome round and I'm really glad I'm playing much better than before," Kang said. "At one point when I was three shots off the lead, I was telling myself, hey, match play, forget about the birdies you've made, just go shot by shot. I made a birdie, I go, ha ha, two down now. I was having fun out there."

Schreefel drew a penalty for moving her ball back to its original spot after it rolled on the green after she replaced it. On the next hole, a rules official told her she should have played the ball from the new spot.

"Things like that just kind of fuel me up," she said. "It's a little bit upsetting in the moment and you're losing two strokes while you're in the hunt to make a really good score. It's unfortunate, but we live and learn."

Lewis, who is No. 2 on the LPGA money list, shot 69 Thursday, then 65 Friday.

"Yesterday I thought I played well, but I just didn't score very well … kind of made some mistakes on the par 5s. So I knew I was playing well, just kind of needed to clean up the round a little bit. I played really solid."

Cristie Kerr, the champion in 2005 and 2009, finished 4-over and missed the cut, which was 1-under. So did Juli Inkster (even par).

That means only Angela Stanford and Natalie Gulbis have made every cut in eight LPGA tournaments at Kingsmill.